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Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4062
Hi all. Just acquired a broken "plasma orb" for £3. Upon examinining it no plasma was evident an a "burning electronics smell" was noticed :(
Took it apart and it appears that the HV transformer has an open winding where the gnd pin goes. This caused the nearby HV node to arc over through the badly designed PCB to ground, generating a conductive path.
Removed transformer from PCB, removed damaged board laminate and replaced. It works but not as well as the comparative working unit.
Interestingly, both units "jam" my laptop touchpad totally...
Registered Member #2584
Joined: Tue Dec 29 2009, 01:21PM
Location:
Posts: 6
Do you have a picture of the transformer? I have never seen the insides of one of before, although once I found one that looked like it used a Van de Graaff as the power source.
There are three things that I can think of that could be causing your problem:
1. The concept of the plasma globe (as you probably know) is to charge the gas that fills the chamber, usually neon or xenon or some other similar gas. The gas is at a pressure well below that of the atmosphere, so if any damage occurred to the sphere, higher pressure gas from the outside could leak in, requiring a higher current to ionize it, a current probably higher than that which the transformer provides. This could account for the amount of plasma, and if not fixed soon, there would be no plasma at all.
2. It is possible that the connections to the inner sphere were damaged, causing a drop in current. This would cause a similar effect as the first answer, and would probably be easier to fix.
3. The transformer may have been damaged, causing either a drop in voltage or current, landing you with the same results as 1 and 2.
Also, these are fun to use to mess with electronics, so long as you don't kill whatever you're messing with.
Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4062
managed to repair the transformer using low melting point alloy dripped into the general area of the winding break, and attached new wire. Did the trick :)
observe.
this is on "ultra macro" mode using an additional scanner unit lens that just happens to fit my camera perfectly.
that "wire" is actually conductive thread. Yet another use for Sparkfun thread, making HV sculptures.
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repairing faulty plasma globe
